Looking back: Stardoz (Patreon)

Good afternoon my dears. Hope you're doing well today. You know, I started this morning with a message from a fellow who had gone some years back into one of my galleries. Looked upon a work of my own called " Start Off " and how out of all my other works through the years, this had been the one picture that they admired most.  

You get so busy some days. Some weeks, months, years. Drag your feet forward, break the tip of your pencil, and dry out the corners of your mind. The moment is always now that there is something new. Even in the  monotony. Some people worry about a lack of variety in their lives. I worry about forgetting where we come from, because believe it or not, nothing lasts forever, even the things that feel like an eternity. 

Want to have some fun with me for a second? I worked on an updated version of this picture, and doing so it made me realize a couple of things. First and foremost, this was back when I was so damn stubbornly locked in on using multiple shades of one or two colors to complete the whole. arguably there is only red and yellow in this work, darkened and brightened in many different areas. It felt..strange to do that, you know? Like it was some great sin when I have all these color palletes and choices scrawling around me. It's nice though. It's simple. Once upon a time, I told myself this is the way I always wanted my work to be. 

You're always evolving. Learning some new trick of the trade, some new driving feeling or force that snaps its fingers to get your attention if you get too comfortable with yourself and what you're doing. Passion can never be satisfied, and goddess save the poor soul who can do just that. Looking back on all this though, all the people I've met, and spoken with through the years. It brings together so much of my inner philosophy into the light. So much of my artistic strengths and flaws. I'm glad to have them, because part of the process has always been in appreciating the work, but never settling on merritts. 

People help shape you, but more importantly, they help you shape yourself. No matter what, in every terrible, low, uncertain point in my life, there has always been at least one person to come along and sit with myself. To encourage me and appreciate the qualities I had, even if all I could surround me in were the reasons why I was so terrible, or my art was so terrible. But you change, I changed. In ways that are subtle, and progressive..and reflections of these people. To all you whispers out there from the years that saw something I didn't....you were right.